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Signs, policies don't deter cell phone users

Practice Management. By Mike Norbut, amednews staff. Jan. 31, 2005.

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It never seems to fail. You've worked for the last hour to get back on schedule, and with one more efficient office visit, you may actually have five minutes to spare for a break.

But then you walk into the next exam room, and you find your patient chatting away on a cell phone. You get a glance, a nod, an index finger in the universal "one moment" gesture, and you spend the next few minutes waiting while the patient finishes the discussion and ends the call.

Or, even more disruptive, you're in the middle of an exam, and the patient's cell phone rings. And instead of ignoring it, the patient answers it.

Whether they temporarily break the rhythm of an appointment or add time to your day, patients busy on cell phones can certainly be a disturbing force to your practice. Cell phone delays are near-daily occurrences in most offices, despite physicians' best efforts to eliminate them.

"They always have some excuse," said Tim Gorski, MD, an ob-gyn in Arlington, Texas. "When you have a business meeting, you'll hold your calls, but when it comes to a cell phone, it doesn't seem to matter."

Policies hardly force 100% compliance in other settings, either. Hospitals generally tell visitors to turn off their cell phones, yet you can hear them ringing down corridors all the time. Movie theater patrons are reminded several times to shut off their ringers before a film starts, but interruptions still occur.

Virgilio Licona, MD, a family physician in Fort Lupton, Colo., said despite signs in every exam room, he encounters patients on their phones daily. He has to deal with family members who are in the room and answer their phones during an exam as well.